Sorry to bring this up again, I am new to OpenID and I breifly read
through some of the user at domain.tld posts. Before I go any futher, I
think a decentralized ID system is an excellent idea, the only problem I
see with it so far, is it's reliance on URL's as identifiers.
First I don't see everyone getting a URL so they can use their OpenID's,
almost everyone who uses the net already has an email address. Second,
tons and tons of other technologies already use email address style
identifiers. These include, but are not limited to: email, jabber, gpg,
monotone, arch, SIP, IAX (and other VOIP stuffs), the list goes on. Why
not continue this tradition, it seems to work well. Why not have one ID
for everything.
The argument that hotmail users can't use openid because they don't have
an openid server on hotmail.com does not hold much water. If the
customers demand it, and google, and yahoo are doing it, hotmail will
have openid's. It's that simple. Also the argument about people
changing email addresses frequently is equally weak. People change
email addresses because their ISP changed, or they found out hotmail
sucks. A revolution is going on, and as an email address becomes the
universal identifier, they won't be quite as quick to change.
Any way, I guess what I am trying to say is, I think OpenID went wrong
on not supporting user at domain.tld as an ID and with out that missing
peice, I don't think it will become popular beyond blogging. I was
thinking about using it (and still am), but the non email based id thing
is a show stopper.
Once again, sorry for bringing this up again...
--
Matthew A. Nicholson
Matt-Land.com